Brian Alfond brings more than 20 years of marketing experience to his role, from his start creating marketing materials, through managing international marketing teams, to becoming one of the leading marketing operations consultants in the world, to now helping his customers design elegant and effective solutions to their marketing business challenges.

A natural problem-solver, Alfond believes that all the technology in the world is not going to fix a broken process or unite disjointed teams. By uniting an understanding of organization dynamics with strong process re-engineering skills and deep martech knowledge, he partners with his customers to address their complex issues. With this approach, Alfond has helped transform the marketing operations of customers ranging in size from small mom-and-pops to Fortune 100 companies.

Alfond has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts, is an accomplished musician, hosts pub trivia and harbors latent dreams of being a stand-up comedian.

Christine Boule has been a client insights consultant with Circana for just over 11 years, working with Starbucks, Nestle and McCormick. She’s known for data storytelling, with a reputation for outside-of-the-box thinking and bringing the art-of-the-possible to life for her clients. Boule lives in Chicago and loves taking advantage of all of the great restaurants, neighborhoods, live shows, pretending the Bears and Cubs are good, spending time with family and friends, and planning her next adventure.

Sai Chand Chintala studies how digital platforms and e-commerce services impact consumer behavior and market processes. His research focuses on how changes in market thickness on C2C platforms retain local biases after the integration of asymmetric markets. He also examines how online grocery shopping affects consumer purchasing patterns in both developed and developing settings, highlighting shifts in shopping habits due to digital channels.

He uses machine learning techniques to capture latent patterns in large sets of shopping data, enabling the identification of comparable shopping trips or products. Building on this, he applies econometric and causal inference tools to evaluate the substantive research questions.

A PhD Candidate in Marketing at Cornell University, he will soon join Singapore Management University as an assistant professor of marketing.

With over 30 years in retail, Diane Colgan brings a depth of valuable and diversified leadership experience to Northeast Grocery, Inc. (NGI). Her career reflects consistent achievements in driving marketing strategies, innovation, cost-effective sales and business insights that produce dynamic business results.  

In 2021, after 13 years with Tops Markets and with the merger of Tops Markets, Price Chopper and Market 32, Colgan’s responsibilities expanded to include marketing oversight for both operating companies. Her previous roles with BI-LO as part of Ahold, Piggly Wiggly and Gerber Products Co. also helped her prepare for her current position where she oversees company brand portfolios, marketing, advertising, digital commerce, pricing and decision support/ business analytics areas for a combined footprint of 300 stores and moe than 50 fuel/convenience stores, nearly $7 billion in company sales and more than 30,000 employees across six northeastern states.  

Colgan lives in East Amherst with her husband, Michael, and cherishes her family time with her two sons, as well as volunteering and board positions with the East Buffalo 5/14 Memorial Commission, United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and the Williamsville Central School District as a wellness board representative. 

Joe Frick is a distinguished sales and business development expert specializing in data-driven marketing strategies for retailers. He has helped clients exceed customer acquisition and retention goals through smart, creative and ethical uses of marketing data for more than 30 years. An active industry speaker, board member, mentor and advisor, Frick is known for his high-energy approach and continual pursuit of knowledge, enhanced by his EMBA studies at NYU Stern. His expertise spans strategic planning, data analysis and innovative marketing solutions.

As vice president of retail for Delaware North Cos., Donna Genesky oversees all aspects of retail operations for the Parks and Resorts, Travel and Australia divisions of the global company. Genesky joined Delaware North in 2007 as a director of retail for the Delaware North Sportservice division. In 2010, she transitioned to the role of regional director of retail, focusing on retail operations at TD Garden while overseeing retail operations at other professional sports venues in the Northeast. Prior to joining Delaware North, Genesky’s career included more than 25 years of retail management, marketing and branding experience with such companies as Federated Department Stores, Hickey-Freeman Co. and PetSmart Direct. She earned a bachelor’s degree in retail management at Purdue University, and has served on the boards of Westminster Economic Development Initiative, Mental Health Advocates of Western New York and Shakespeare in Delaware Park.

Manish Gupta is executive vice president and senior audit director at M&T Bank Corp. He is responsible for strategic planning and assurance oversight over the bank’s cybersecurity and enterprise data programs and technologies supporting retail and finance operations. He provides advisory services on key initiatives, emerging technologies and digital capabilities supporting the bank’s strategy and operations, and interfaces with the bank’s regulatory agencies and the board of directors. He has more than 20 years of operational and strategic experience in technology, data, cybersecurity and risk management areas.

Since 2012, he also has been an adjunct instructor at University at Buffalo, teaching graduate courses in IT auditing and IT risk management. He has authored or coauthored more than 80 research papers in technology and cybersecurity risk management areas. His research has been published in MIS Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, ACM Transactions and IEEE Transactions, amongst others, and has won best paper awards. He received his PhD (Management/MIS) and MBA (Finance and MIS) from the University at Buffalo in 2011 and 2003, respectively.

John Hennessy has more than 30 years of senior sales leadership supporting the adoption of brand and retail data and data-driven technologies. Most recently, he worked with Alert Innovation to support retailer adoption of Alert’s robotic, automated e-grocery fulfillment system until its acquisition by Walmart.

Hennessy has worked in executive roles at IRI and Kantar Consulting in their retail virtual reality group. He helped build several data-driven technology startups, including personalized marketing firm Concept Shopping and wireless, perishable shipping monitoring provider Locus Traxx.

He advises brands and retailers how to support optimization of automated fulfillment systems and optimization of other data-driven brand and retail technologies through brand and retailer collaboration and innovation. Hennessy is also engaged with unique approaches to offer more effective retail media network capabilities.

Kirthi Kalyanam is the L.J. Skaggs Distinguished Professor and executive director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University. With research and expertise in retailing, internet and multichannel marketing, Kalyanam develops a distinctive cutting-edge curriculum and delivers innovative learning experiences. He brings a wealth of knowledge and insights into the future of retail, having previously led executive seminars on internet disruption, the future of retail and the Amazon and WalMart Effect in retailing.

He has served as faculty director of the Executive MBA program, a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a guest faculty in the Stanford Executive MMP program, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of SpinCircuit Inc, a provider of supply chain integration services to the electronics industry, and he has served on the board of directors for Overstock.com. 

Kalyanam advises early-stage startups and designed and delivered the first Retail University program at Google. Today he is developing the third generation of this program. It is through his strong connections that he is able to engage industry collaboration for RMI and the retail studies program. 

He finds inspiration in Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial spirit, expanding the boundaries to connect ideas and organizations through RMI’s retail study students and transformative programming. He is committed to discovery through the blending of the retail and technology industries.  

Kalyanam received his PhD in business administration from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University.

Kristopher Keller earned his PhD in marketing from Tilburg University in the Netherlands. His research falls into two streams: private labels and responsible retailing, which looks at initiatives in the retailing industry and its implications for society, such as healthier shopping habits (reducing sugar content, soda taxes) or environmental effects (plastic bottle deposits, bans of paper store flyers). His work has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and the Journal of Retailing and has earned him multiple awards, including the AMA-EBSCO-RRBM Award for Responsible Research in Marketing.

At Kenan-Flagler, Keller teaches marketing core courses and has received the Weatherspoon Award for Excellence in MBA Teaching. He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and Journal of Retailing.

Before academia, he was active in the jewelry business — an experience that, while fascinating, confirmed his preference for studying retail strategies rather than running them. When not analyzing data, he enjoys contemplating whether his own grocery shopping behavior always aligns with his research findings (spoiler: it doesn’t).

Scott Kessler joined Northeast Shared Services in May 2023 and serves as executive vice president and chief information officer. 

A seasoned executive with a proven track record of driving digital and IT transformational growth in the retail industry, Kessler has more than 20 years of experience. He previously served as executive vice president/CIO at BJs Wholesale Club, where he provided strategic guidance on the art-of-the-possible, leveraging technology to achieve desired business outcomes, including omnichannel, merchandising, demand planning, supply chain, logistics, customer loyalty, financial management and business operations. 

Prior roles include executive vice president/CIO at Belk; senior vice president, products technology, at GSI Commerce, and senior manager at Accenture. 

Kessler holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He serves as CIO, Council Chair (volunteer) for the National Retail Foundation, is an eclectic reader, an avid recreational golfer and huge Philly sports fan. 

Matt Krueger is a digital commerce executive with more than 15 years' experience in eCommerce, general management and digital marketing in various product industries. With expertise in DTC, marketplaces (ie: Amazon) and digital wholesale, he is a proven leader with an enthusiasm for data, analytics and leveraging generative AI for business optimization. Krueger is passionate about building innovative teams and driving sustainable, profitable growth. He is a believer that trial and error is the way to succeed. 

Coming soon!

A strategic business leader with nearly two decades of experience managing internet marketplaces around the globe, Vikas Mehta joined ACV in 2019 as chief operating officer. He manages tactical and strategic operations at ACV, where his teams are relentlessly focused on delivering the best customer experience every day.

Prior to joining ACV, Mehta held several leadership roles in North America and Europe at eBay for over a decade. These included launching and running the payments initiative for North America, growing the German consumer marketplace, overseeing and scaling operations for Canada’s largest classifieds site Kijiji, seeding and blitz-scaling classifieds businesses in Italy, Belgium and Turkey, and overseeing a global technology program that supported more than 20 markets. Prior to joining eBay, he ran a technology program and sourcing strategy for Allstate’s independent agent business unit.

Mehta received a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Florida and two master's degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including a degree in technology policy. Outside of the office, he enjoys spending time with his wife and three children, reading and a wide variety of sports.

For more than 30 years, David Polinchock has explored emerging technologies that can help brands tell better stories. He is president of the Unified Brand Experience Lab, a new retail lab, designed to give companies in the retail, VR/AR and OOH industries a place to work, showcase and demo the technologies they’re creating. He was an early pioneer in the use of virtual reality for advertising and marketing, having started experiential advertising using VR in 1991. Since then, he has run his own lab, was the director of the firs AT&T AdWorks Lab and worked at the PwC Experience Center. He also has worked on a variety of emerging technology launches, including the award-winning AudienceGames cinema AR program.

Polinchock has covered a lot of ground over the years, but one thing has remained constant: He has always looked for innovative ways to create compelling, authentic and relevant brand experiences.

He’s been very fortunate to have had the chance to travel with his daughter, Sydney, who helps him remember that the most important experiences are the ones you share with people you love.

In addition to his role as professor of marketing at Seneca Polytechnic, Hemant Sangwan is a sessional lecturer at Schulich School of Business, York University and Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He teaches courses in AI, data science, analytics, economics, marketing research, strategy, and statistics at undergraduate and graduate levels. He also has led executive education and bootcamp modules in marketing analytics, Python programming, and data science at other leading institutions (Questrom School of Business, Boston University and Hult International School, Boston) outside Canada.

He brings a unique blend of academic rigour and real-world expertise to problem-solving in such areas as growth strategy, branding, pricing, CRM and new product development. With more than 12 years of industry experience, Sangwan has worked in management consulting, data science, marketing research and economic forecasting, serving clients across financial services, CPG, retail, telecom and construction sectors. He has held roles at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), GfK Canada and IHS Markit. His ability to merge research, analytics and strategy makes him a valuable educator and consultant in today’s data-driven world. He is the co-founder and director of HS Advisory Inc., a consulting firm specializing in survey research, digital marketing, brand communication, strategy and analytics.

In addition, Sangwan extended his expertise to political strategy, having advised candidates in municipal and federal elections on campaign finances, voter segmentation, branding and social media strategies.

He holds a PhD in Management from Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and an MS in Quantitative Economics from the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi.

Sivaramakrishnan Siddarth is an expert in the development and use of response models to understand consumer and market behavior. His research has been published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Management Science, and Marketing Science, among others. Siddarth serves on the editorial board of Marketing Letters. He is a recipient of the O’Dell outstanding paper award from the Journal of Marketing Research, the USC Mellon Award for excellence in mentoring graduate students, the Evan C. Thompson Faculty Teaching and Learning Innovation Award, and several Golden Apple teaching awards.

Erinn Steffen is the executive vice president of operations at Mower, a full-service advertising, PR and marketing agency. She leads operational strategy to drive efficiency, collaboration and growth across the agency. Steffen spearheads Mower’s financial services specialty, helping regional banks and credit unions strengthen their brands, enhance customer engagement and drive business growth. She has deep expertise in financial marketing, brand strategy and customer relationship strategies.